Inside Europe's Largest Biomass Storage Deal

Senken and Carbonsate have signed Europe's largest biomass storage offtake to date — 50,000 tonnes of permanent CO2 removal from a Puro.earth-certified biomass burial project in Namibia, roughly 4% of everything the permanent removal sector has delivered so far.

Adrian Wons and Dan Harburg are joined by Carbonsate founder Fabian Sperling to work through what biomass storage actually is, how it differs from biochar, and the question every durable removal method has to answer: how do you prove a tonne stays buried for a hundred years?

Then: BeZero publishes ex ante ratings on 14 Microsoft-backed removal projects and the pair ask whether a developer should have to pay to be rated. A German government probe finds forged documents, fake audits and alleged bribery behind Chinese projects feeding an EU fuel compliance scheme — and prompts the sharper question of whether compliance markets are really cleaner than voluntary ones. Google opens its 2026 Carbon Removal and Superpollutant R&D Awards.

Carbon prices this week: Mangroves $31.07 (-6.89%), ARR $21.24 (-9.77%), IFM $18.34 (-4.03%), REDD $8.54 (-6.46%), CORC EUR138.35, DAC $540, BECCS $180, ERW $210.

Chapters

0:00 Cold open

0:28 Titles

0:56 What's on this episode

3:00 Senken and Carbonsate: Europe's largest biomass storage deal

4:45 Biomass storage vs biochar: what's the difference?

7:44 Meet Fabian Sperling, founder of Carbonsate

7:57 From a research paper to a project in Namibia

10:07 Is encroaching bush really a waste feedstock?

12:50 Why not just make biochar with it?

14:53 Is buried biomass easier to measure than biochar?

16:23 Reforestation in reverse: cutting trees so grass can grow

17:13 How do you prove permanence for a hundred years?

20:28 Does a storage site take land out of use?

22:02 Where is Carbonsate in three years?

23:39 BeZero rates 14 Microsoft-backed removal projects

25:21 Should a project developer pay to be rated?

27:29 When does a rating actually change a deal?

33:05 Forged documents and fake audits: the German probe

37:02 Is compliance really cleaner than the voluntary market?

40:30 Google opens its 2026 carbon removal R&D awards

46:03 Superpollutants: hype word or real market?

Links

- Senken and Carbonsate deal — https://carbonherald.com/senken-and-carbonsate-ink-europes-largest-biomass-storage-deal-to-date/

- BeZero ratings on Microsoft projects — https://esgnews.com/bezero-publishes-microsoft-carbon-removal-risk-ratings/

- German shadow-structure probe — https://carbon-pulse.com/543804/

- Google 2026 Climate R&D Awards — https://esgnews.com/google-opens-2026-climate-rd-awards-for-carbon-removal/

Tags

carbon markets, carbon removal, CDR, biomass storage, biomass burial, biochar, Puro.earth, Namibia, BeZero, carbon ratings, ICVCM, CCP, EU ETS, compliance carbon markets, voluntary carbon market, Senken, Carbonsate, Mombak, ARR, REDD